The Halloween party was winding down and the lights had just come back on when gunfire raked the crowd of a hundred people on the West Side early Sunday. One burst, then another.
As people dove for cover, Jasmine Carter said she spotted her sister across the room. “She kept screaming, ‘My leg! My leg!’ She was limping and losing blood.”
Carter said she and a cousin stayed with her sister as she dropped to the floor while people around them were “running and hitting the floor.”
She was among the most seriously hurt when a man opened fire after being thrown out of the party in the 1200 block of South Pulaski Road shortly after midnight Sunday, according to police and witnesses. At least 15 people were wounded before the man ran off and a suspect was eventually taken into custody.
No charges have been announced, but the man is a convicted felon with arrests for murder, attempted murder and carjacking. The attack was among several mass shootings over the weekend across the country, including 18 shot in Tampa, Fla., 10 in Indianapolis, Ind. and 7 in Las Cruces, N.M.
Police officers look at the bullet holes on the security curtains at Studio 1258, a North Lawndale art gallery previously cited for operating without a proper license, according to the city.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
The victims in the North Lawndale attack ranged in age from 26 to 53, including nine men and six women, police said. Two of them were critically wounded, while the others were listed in good-to-fair condition.
Carter said the crowd, most of them dressed in costumes, panicked as the man kept firing into the building. “Everybody was climbing on top of each other,’’ she said.
One of the victims was a man in a wheelchair who was shot in the neck, Carter said. “He was pushed over on the floor ... He just thought about everybody stomping over him so he stayed in his chair.
“Everybody was just screaming, ‘Help! Help!’” she said. “I was scared and mad and screaming for the ambulance. The first ambulance on the scene helped a woman who was inside near the front door. She was badly hurt.”
Carter’s sister suffered gunshot wounds to the arm, the buttocks, the back of the knee and her leg. Two nurses at the party rushed to her aid, she said. “They immediately tied something around her leg to stop the bleeding. One of them told her to hold her arm that was shot up in the air.”
Carter, 32, was on her way to grab flowers late Monday morning and head back to Stroger Hospital, where her sister was “doing better.”
Nearly a hundred people had turned out for the party, which included was a prize for best costume. Comedians also performed. Carter said she was dressed as the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland and her sister went as a “killer clown.”
The party was beginning to break up when the man, who was not wearing a costume, was thrown out. A witness said he appeared intoxicated, according to a witness who was interviewed by police. “He was drunk and dashing around knocking over one person’s drink and then ten minutes later knocked another drink over.
“They told him, ‘Hey man, you’ve had enough, you’re done,” the witness said. “After staffers escorted him out, he stayed around near the outside of the building but kept trying to get back in. They told him, ‘No, you can’t.’”
The man forced his way past security and as the lights were on and the music turned off. “He wasn’t’ shooting at anybody in particular, he was squeezing off shots at whoever was in front of him,” the witness said.
Police had been parked nearby, and the witness said he saw officers running toward the gunman and taking him into custody. Other officers applied tourniquets to several victims on the scene.
Carter said she discovered a “knot” on her thigh Monday morning and believes she was grazed by a bullet. She and her sister are from the western suburbs and “over” visiting that area of the city, she said. “It’s traumatizing to go anywhere in that area.”
The party was held at Studio 1258, an art gallery that police said has a “history of throwing unlicensed events.” Police said Studio 1258 will be closed under the city’s summary closure ordinance, which gives the department the power to immediately shut down businesses associated with violence.
The business previously received a cease-and-desist order and citations for operating without proper licenses, a spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection said in a statement.
A person associated with the business couldn’t be reached.